His first season as the head coach of the Boston College football team went better than expected.

The Eagles went 7-5 during the regular season, including 4-4 in the Atlantic Coast Conference, before losing to Arizona in the Independence Bowl.

After going a combined 6-18 the previous two seasons, it was a step forward for the Eagles under Steve Addazio.

Making more progress this season appears to be a difficult task for BC since it lost several key components from a year ago and has a depth chart loaded with freshmen and sophomores.

“I like our team,’’ said Addazio earlier this month. “I like the kids we have on the team. I like the work ethic and the character. But the infrastructure of taking a program over, it takes time. We’re in that process. We all knew we’d be in that process.

“I want to be clear about this. I’m really excited about it because I’m excited about the players we have and have brought in. I know we have a lot of talented young players we have brought into this program right now. So it will get there. We’re all impatient.

“I can’t declare it’s going to happen week two, week seven, year three. I’m really optimistic because I know it will, but I don’t have that crystal ball to tell you exactly how that’s going to go in the next one week or three months because I don’t know.’’

The University of Massachusetts, meanwhile, has gone 2-22 since moving up to the Football Bowl Subdivision and is looking to start moving in the right direction.

The Minutemen have brought back Mark Whipple, who coached them to the Division 1-AA championship in 1998, after two rough years under Charley Molinar.

Saturday afternoon, BC and UMass get their seasons going by squaring off at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro (3 p.m., radio: WEEI-FM/93.7 and WATD-FM/95.9) before an expected crowd of 25,000.

Two programs going through transitions will meet for Bay State bragging rights for the 25th time.

“Last year, we had a unique group of seniors that had been through a lot,’’ said Addazio. “They were recruited here when they were winning. They got a little disillusioned. They were able to rally back together and found a way to get the program winning and back to bowl eligibility.’’

Page 2 of 2 - Now it is up to a new group of underclassmen to lead the way while BC gets playing time for inexperienced youngsters, which is always part of the rebuilding process.

The Eagles are going with Tyler Murphy, a graduate transfer from Florida, at quarterback while UMass will start Marshall transfer Blake Frohnapfel.

BC owns a 19-5 record over the Minutemen and has won seven straight meetings since a lost in 1978. This marks their first game since UMass moved up a level.

“Obviously any time you play an intrastate game like this, there’s going to be a lot of energy,’’ said Addazio this week. “What we have to do is play our game. We’re young, inexperienced. We’ve got to do what we can control, which is take care of the football, tackle well, establish the run.’’

UMass, which faces another challenging schedule as it attempts to establish itself in the FBS, knows the opener will be difficult.

“They’re a solid ACC team that is very aggressive on defense and has a transfer quarterback from Florida who has started six games,’’ said Whipple. “It’s an experienced group, solid all the way across. We’ve got our hands full.

“We’ll know a lot about ourselves probably after the first quarter. We’ve had a great camp. I’ve seen lot of improvement from the first day of spring. Are we ready to play at an ACC level? Well, we’ll find out. It’s a tough opener, but one that our guys will be excited about.’’

Jim Fenton may be reached at jfenton@enterprisenews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JFenton_ent.